Thursday, March 22, 2012

General Motors India’s two Chinese offerings Chevrolet Sail hatchback, Chevrolet Sail sedan and one Chevrolet MPV are now nearing their launch. The Sail hatch obviously will be preceding the sedan and the MPV. As per the latest updates, the Sail hatchback launch in India could happen in coming June-July. These two cars will be the first lot of cars out of the joint venture between GM India and Chinese car maker Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC). The Sail hatch is expected to be priced around Rs 4 lakh. The B-segment MPV is also expected by the year end. This could be a car based on the Wuling CN-100. The third offering – Sail sedan is on the cards. Besides the launch of new cars, GM India is also upgrading its product portfolio aggressively.

The MPV, Chevrolet Enjoy, is being readied to be positioned as a rival to Maruti Ertiga which is expected to be launched on April 11. The 7-8 seater Wuling CN-100 based MPV will be entering a segment which is not fat as of now but with Ford B Max and Maruti Ertiga soon to be added to it and Toyota Innova, Mahindra Xylo and Tata Aria already present in this segment, it is expected that there will be much commotion in this segment in the near future.

Lowell Paddock, president and MD of GM India has reportedly said in a statement that both the hatchback and the MPV have been accustomed to Indian conditions and after some trial runs the two GM cars will be ready for launch. Besides the two, reports also suggest that there is a facelift version of small car Chevrolet Spark coming soon as well. Apart from this Chevrolet Captiva SUV is soon to have a 2.2 L engine under the hood along with some changes. Notably, Chevrolet has already launched the BSIV version of Tavera Neo 3 at a price starting at Rs 7.51 lakh recently.